Online Marketing

Getting positive online reviews is now one of the most crucial factors for growing your business and establishing trust with your customers. Let’s look at the top 7 ways to get more positive reviews for your business.

Track Reviews

It’s essential to know when people post reviews for your business. Monitor any sites where you’re listed, such as Google, Yelp, Yellow Pages, Yahoo, etc. Set up Google Alerts for your business name as well. This gives you a chance to address any negative reviews and, hopefully, resolve problems with customers.

Provide Complete and Accurate Information

Make sure your listings for Google My Business and other reviews sites are thorough and include essential information such as your address, phone number and hours of business. Also, be sure to provide a good description of your business to help customers find you in the search engines.

Use Quality Images

Professional looking photos are one of the best ways to highlight your listings on review sites. Images make your business stand out and get noticed. Photos of yourself, employees, your place of business and surroundings give people searching a clearer picture of what you have to offer.

Respond to All Customer Reviews

It’s a good policy to respond to all online reviews, both positive and negative. When someone praises you, always take the time to thank them. This isn’t only polite, it actually encourages others to leave positive reviews. You should also respond to negative reviews. Apologize for any mistakes you made and offer to remedy the situation. In some cases, this is enough to get people to remove or change the review.

Ask Your Customers For Reviews

Let your customers know that reviews are important to you. You might send out follow-up emails asking them to leave a review. There is now software that automatically asks customers to leave feedback. For satisfied customers, you can then follow up with a request for a review. Make it easy for them by having a button to click on that links to the review site. For physical businesses, your sales people or receptionist can also verbally suggest to customers on the way out to leave a review.

Only Use Ethical and Accepted Methods to Get Reviews

Avoid practices that violate the TOS of review sites and could get your business de-listed. While it’s fine to request reviews, never specify that people should leave a positive review. Don’t try to incentivize reviews, such as by offering a prize or discount. Another practice that crosses the line is asking for reviews right at your place of business. This violates the rules of certain review sites, including Google.

Don’t Get Into Public Debates With Customers

Getting angry or defensive online seldom works out well for businesses. Try to resolve problems, such as by offering a refund or exchange. If this isn’t possible, it’s best to just stop communicating. Getting into a nasty public conflict usually makes matters worse. You can’t please everyone and a few bad customer reviews aren’t going to hurt you as long as you cultivate mostly positive ones.

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If you own a small business, you must always look for ways to grow and stay competitive. This is now truer than ever, with new technologies constantly disrupting the business world. There are a number of practices that can help drive marketing growth in today’s fast-paced and competitive environment.

Email Marketing is Still Relevant

Although email marketing is one of the oldest types of online marketing, it’s still very relevant. No matter what other platforms and technologies appear, people are still using email. Email, in fact, is complementary to other trends such as mobile-centricity and social media. For example, your social media pages can be used to grow your email list. Many of your subscribers will read your emails on their mobile devices. Focus on building your list and giving your subscribers helpful content.

Upgrade Your Social Media Presence

Social media is another trend that just keeps growing. The only things that change are which social media sites are most popular. Be sure to target the sites that your particular audience uses most. This depends on the age, interests and other demographics of your customers. As with blogging and email, it’s important to provide engaging content. Visually interesting content such as photos and videos are especially effective on social media.

Harness the Power of Data

Another term that’s often repeated in the business world is “big data.” Relying on hard data to make your business decisions is another practice that gives you a real edge. When you track your results and make changes based on analytics, you can consistently improve your results. This involves testing of as many variables as possible, including website design, social media practices, email templates, landing pages and any other marketing tools you employ.

Engage Your Audience With Video

Videos are more popular than ever. There are now more types of videos used in business, such as 360-degree video and live streaming videos. People find videos more engaging than other types of content as it lets them absorb information using multiple senses. You can include video content on your website, in your social media posts and even in your emails. No matter what type of small business you have, you can find ways to connect with your customers using video.

Leverage the Power of Blogging

A blog gives you the chance to establish your authority and provides the search engines with lots of content. This is a valuable tool to help you get more website traffic and increase your credibility. When blogging, make sure you publish content that’s relevant to your audience and that directly addresses their concerns and problems. Another principle of blogging is that you have to be consistent about it. If you blog at least once per week, preferably more, you’ll soon have a large body of content on many topics.

Understand that Mobile is the Dominant Force in Marketing Today

The expansion of mobile devices is the most significant long-term trend that has a huge impact on businesses. A few years ago, people started talking about making websites mobile-friendly. Now, you need to take this a step further and aim to be mobile-centric. That’s because mobile is quickly overtaking computers when it comes to internet browsing and online commerce. If you want to get more leads and sales, you have to make sure that your website and lead generation process is easy for mobile customers to manage. Because people are accessing the internet via mobile, this is really the single most important factor for accelerating marketing growth in the years to come.

In addition to the small business growth strategies discussed above, it’s also crucial for small businesses to maintain a healthy cash flow. One convenient way to ensure you get paid promptly is to start using invoice factoring with Riviera Finance. This service makes a big difference when it comes to your cash flow and accounts receivable management.

A profitable website is one of your best tools for getting more leads and customers. Many websites, unfortunately, are not effective and don’t do much to help businesses grow. To create website traffic and profits it’s necessary to do plenty of research and to implement some proven strategies. Let’s look at the top five tips to create website success.

Install Google Analytics

Analytics are essential for tracking your results and understanding what is and isn’t working. There are all kinds of tools to help you do this, but Google Analytics is free and fairly easy to use. It gives you many valuable capabilities, such as tracking your visitors, identifying how long they spend on each page, tracking conversions and learning where your traffic comes from. Install Google Analytics and consult it frequently. When you notice that you’re not getting the desired results in a certain area, try to pinpoint the problem so you can make the necessary changes.

Implement a Content Management System (CMS)

A CMS makes it much easier to build a successful website. Many tasks are automated and you can add helpful features such as plugins. WordPress is the most popular CMS, but you can also look into others such as Drupal and Joomla. WordPress is generally the most newbie-friendly. Drupal is better for sites with high traffic or many pages. Joomla is very good for small businesses because it has many features that let you scale up as you grow. The best CMS really depends on your needs.

Conduct A/B Tests

The only way to really know how your site is doing is to conduct tests. A/B or split tests are simple and useful, as they let you compare two variables. The more elements you test, the more comprehensive your knowledge. Remember that almost everything you do in marketing can be tested, including headlines, article topics, layouts, colors, graphics, and much more. Google Analytics provides many tools for testing, which Google calls experiments.

Add a Contact Form and Contact Information

To create website success, you want to make it as easy as possible for your customers and prospects to contact you. A contact form is a simple way for people to send you an email for more information. In addition, list as much contact information as you’re comfortable with. It’s best to list a physical address and phone number. This information increases the trust factor for your business. It shows that you’re transparent about who you are, where you’re located and how to get in touch with you.

Include Multiple Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

If you want a profitable website, you absolutely must include strong calls-to-action (CTA). You should include a variety of these in multiple locations. Having CTAs in different formats increases the chances of people leaving their email addresses, buying your products, or taking whatever action you want. If you’re selling a product, for example, include many links to the product page. Have opt-in forms on every page of your website. A CTA lets your visitors know exactly what you want them to do.

This week’s blog was provided by Moxie Digital. Riviera’s weekly blog articles, written by business professionals on a variety of subjects, are designed to help business owners manage and grow their companies.

If you are looking for ways to market your business but you worry that a limited budget is holding you back, you’ll be glad to know that there are quite a few effective marketing tactics that are free. When you’re just starting out, or you’re strapped for cash, it’s prudent to seek out these cost-free strategies. Let’s look at three powerful ways to market an online business that don’t require you to reach for your wallet.

Sign Up With Google My Business

Google provides several important tools to help you market your business locally. Google Maps is particularly important for physical businesses, as it provides customers with directions to your place of business. Here are the key steps to use Google My Business and Google Maps:

Sign up with Google My Business. Add all relevant information, such as your business name, address, phone number, hours and description.

If you have a service-based business where customers don’t actually walk into your store or office, you can still sign up with Google My Business. However, you must have a brick and mortar business to use Google Maps. Both services are free.

Social Media

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and others provide many free resources for promoting your business. Here are some tips to keep in mind to get the most out of social media:

Choose the sites that work best for your business. Think of the demographics of your customers and figure out which social sites they use most.

Fill out your profiles thoroughly. Use quality photos, include links to your website, and provide a detailed, keyword-rich description of your business.

Connect with friends, family, business associates and colleagues to grow your following. On some sites, such as Twitter and LinkedIn, one of the best ways to build up your following is to follow others with similar interests. Also connect with influencers in your industry -people with large followings and solid reputations.

Share content regularly. Daily is best. You can post two to three times per day on Facebook, even more on Twitter. Post a variety of content, including articles, videos, images, infographics and anything that’s relevant to your audience. You can also post useful links to other people’s content if they aren’t direct competitors.

Offer special promotions to your followers such as coupons, promo codes and discounts.

Email Marketing

Another great free way to market your business is email marketing. An email list gives you the ability to send messages to your list whenever you want.

MailChimp is free for the first 2,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails per month. Once you get more than that, you can find a plan that fits your business.

Send out emails regularly to engage with your audience. You could use a newsletter format to help establish your expertise. MailChimp provides templates to help you do this.

Promote articles, videos, your Facebook page, your latest product, affiliate offers, your book on Amazon or whatever you want to promote. On the other hand, also include helpful tips, news and other helpful information.

As your list grows, you may want to segment it, sending different messages to subscribers based on their interests and past buying behavior.

Use these three free methods to market your business. As you gain a larger following, you’ll start generating income from your online marketing efforts. Then you can think about investing in advertising and other paid promotional strategies.